More Than Mere Etiquette
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: [FFVI] Cyan attempts to teach Gau table manners, but Gau ends up teaching him a thing or three.


**More Than Mere Etiquette**

Cyan holds a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. He is sawing at a piece of meat. It is very large, considering that half the world is starving. An oily rivulet of blood runs from its pores.

"This is how you eat properly," he says to Gau. "We have taught you this before."

"Uwaaaoooo…" says Gau. His voice is subdued. He pulls his feet onto his chair, wraps his arms around his knees.

"That is not how we sit."

Gau lets his arms and feet fall. His limbs hang like limp noodles. He glances up from under unruly bangs.

"Cyan always eat like this?"

"Of course."

"In Doma?"

Now there is a thick lump in Cyan's throat. It is not from the meal; he swallows it down anyway. "It does not matter. Doma is gone."

"You not gone. Doma still alive."

"But we are not there now."

"No one else _here_ now. Why you teach me their way?"

"Do not try to distract."

Gau hunches over and grabs a piece of bread from his plate. "Gau go to restaurant yesterday. With Sabin. We try eat 'in polite company.'

"I heard something of this incident," says Cyan dryly. "That is why I am practicing etiquette with you today, while Sir Sabin is buying a present for the restaurant owners."

"Jidoor people, they say Gau is not human. Gau is animal."

Cyan puts down his fork and knife carefully. "That was unkind of them."

In lieu of words, Gau tears at the piece of bread with his teeth, scattering crumbs onto his velvet suit. "I am not angry at word 'animal,'" he says carefully and entirely at odds with the way he is eating. "Of course I am animal. Everyone is animal."

Then he starts to attack the meat. With his hands, not a fork.

This, Cyan watches, silent and still. Now is not the time to comment on the boy's table manners. No matter that he has worked so long to correct them…

"I angry because stupid people think animal is bad word." Gau chews, mouth open, and Cyan can see everything. "They think animal is nothing, only food, only cart puller, only enemy."

He shoots Cyan a stormy look. "You think like them?"

"Ah…" he prevaricates, thinking to deny the accusation. Except...

_This is not the Veldt._

_Have you no concept of propriety?_

_You are a human, not an animal; kindly act like one._

..he has said things, this long week, that tasted foul on his tongue.

Sir Sabin, too:

_You want to be a good son for your dad, don't you?_

_You don't want to let him down._

_You have to be better than this!_

_Who, exactly, was the prince talking about?_

"Perhaps you are right," Cyan sighs, leaning back in his chair. His armour clanks like a creaky old man. "We have tried to make you what you are not. I thought to help you learn the ways of the world, but I wondered too whether we were doing right by you."

"Nor angry," says the boy, still gnawing sullenly on the meat as if it were a tough dried jerky, not a prime cut of tenderloin. "Still want to learn...human way. Want to meet father."

"Of course," says Cyan. Inwardly, he doubts the value of meeting a man who would throw his own son away. "Though perhaps it is not necessary to—"

Gau shakes his head vigorously. He is done chewing. "No stop lessons. Just want to talk. Just want to...show you, Cyan have their thinking too. You say 'monster' sometimes. You mean 'animal' but you say 'monster.'"

"Truly?"

Gau nods. He also grabs the water jug and begins gulping down copious amounts of liquid, straight from the spout.

Waiting for this display of...unique etiquette to end, Cyan thinks back to what he has done for the past year. He has fought a great deal, certainly. In this hungry new world, everyone has fought. Before he reunited with the others, he defended his erstwhile home in the mountains from wyverns and bears and strange bird-like creatures that could turn a man to stone. He helped chase the demon Doomgaze off the deck of the _Falcon_ on two memorable occasions. And he killed—no, slaughtered—a great many beasts on the Veldt as he searched for Sir Gau and, unsuccessfully, Sir Shadow.

"This one," Gau says, hands moving to the leather cord 'round his neck, "this one monster too? What you think?"

It is not the leather hide he speaks of. From under his stiff collared shirt, Gau pulls out the shard of magicite hanging from the cord.

_Valigarmanda_, the stone whispers into Cyan's mind. _Or Tritoch, in the older tongue._

Cyan does not flinch, as once he would have. He is used to the mental intrusions of Espers by now. But this particular one...

He gestures at the stone. "I respect the Espers. They are not dissimilar to humans; in fact we are distant kin, according to Strago. But Valigarmanda is different."

He remembers how the beast—the _being_—nearly blasted them off a cliffside in Narshe. He remembers blue lighting, Terra launching herself into the frozen sky, eyes crazed and feral. He remembers the stunned Returners picking themselves off the frozen ground to stare at the monstrous thing they had fought so hard to defend—eyes filled with fear.

Despite that, some weeks ago Terra said, _I want to ask Valigarmanda to be our ally_, and so they sent a scouting party once more to that cursed cliffside. Cyan heard tell of the battle: a fierce, frigid affair. They came back not with a living ally but a corpse-stone, and Terra with downcast eyes.

"Have a care," Cyan says softly, "when you wield that Esper."

"He tame now," says Gau. "Dead now. Humans can use."

Cyan thinks he sees the magicite pulse once with green light...but surely it is his imagination. "He could not be saved, I heard. Too long in the ice."

"No. He fight us. He want to die." Gau visibly slumps over in his chair: such an expressive child. "Espers all want to die. They know humans strong, Espers can't stay. World is human world."

"Terra is our bridge to them."

"You think so?" says Gau. "True?"

Cyan's hand goes to his own magicite: not on a cord 'round his neck but in a pouch at his side. _Alexander_, his Esper is called. _A stalwart protector_, Terra told him, _and a kind soul_.

Her eyes were closed as she spoke. Her palms enfolded the green crystal with the same tenderness she showed her children.

"She has taught us," Cyan says, "that there is room for both our kinds in this world."

Gau picks up his fork and picks uneasily at the remnants of food on the tines. "Empire think Espers are monsters. They hunt Espers, no care, just weapons."

"We are not the Empire."

"Sometimes I am thinking, we same." Gau's voice goes soft and sad. "I see Figaro, Narshe, Nikeah, many places. Jidoor. Enough food here. Everyone very hungry in small towns. Animals hungry too, fight with humans for food. But big cities, no care. And everyone say, animal is monster, all is monster, no care."

"Oh, Sir Gau," says Cyan, uselessly. He leans forward, hoping to convey with his eyes what cannot he put into mere words. "It is true what you have said: humans are the real monsters of this world."

"No, not—"

"I am sorry you had to learn this lesson so young."

"I am not young, just Cyan old."

Cyan surprises himself with his own bark of laughter: it is almost comical. "I suppose I am. Is that another monstrous thing, to be old?"

"Cyan no listen. No one is monster. Sometimes all animals do bad things."

"But only humans seek to dominate all living things. We are different from animals."

"You sure? You know animals so well?"

"Er, well, that is..."

"You know? Some animals have bad ideas, try to take over pack, then other animals kill them. Some animals eat all food in area, no food left, no seeds left, and then they die. That is stupid. Some animals try to kill so many things, not for eating, just fun. Humans is just one like that."

"Oh."

"Humans just very good at stupid. Not special. Another animal. Smart animals stay away. Like Espers who stay behind gate."

"Oh," says Cyan again. He is not sure what to say. "Do you...not consider yourself human, then?"

Gau's grin is almost wry. He touches the false gold buttons on his garish red jacket. Flakes of dried canapé cascade through the wrinkles in the fabric as he moves. "Maybe Gau stupid too."

Cyan laughs again, this time a sound less grating on the ears. "We are fools together, child."

"I am not child."

"I am just old," Cyan echoes, "and apparently a stupid human."

"Most humans not stupid all the time," says Gau. "Most humans not so bad." He glances up shyly. "Cyan is good person."

"I am glad you think so. I do not think it myself."

"Cyan is always kind," Gau insists. "Cyan is like...you are like...Cyan take care of me. When together with Cyan and Sabin, Gau h...app...y."

It is moments such as these that test Cyan's fortitude: these timorous flutters of happiness, of contentment, even love. He has to swallow down the lump in his throat again, the one that tastes of memories.

"I do not think I deserve it," he says, voice hoarse, "but I thank you for your continued kindness, Sir Gau."

Gau ducks his head. His hair, escaping from the ribbon at his nape, falls into his eyes. "Uwaoooo…"

Almost without thinking, Cyan lets his hand drift to the magicite inside his pouch.

_Are you well_, Sir Cyan? says the voice of Alexander.

_I am well_, Cyan replies.

He takes out the stone and shows it to Gau. In a low voice, he says, "You were with me when we found him. In...Doma."

Gau's nods, eyes wide.

"If it were not for him, the demons would have taken me. I would still be in that nightmare."

"Terra say, he protect you."

"Since then, with Alexander at my side, my sleep has been...better, at least."

Gau cocks his head to the side, wolf-like. "He is your friend?"

"Yes," Cyan breathes, finally realizing what he means to say. "He is the first Esper I have been truly comfortable with."

"He is a castle."

"Perhaps that is part of it."

"He is Doma," Gau says, voice gentle. "Doma is strong, good place. Kefka try to take away, but Alexander say no, do not let him erase."

_Yes_, says Alexander. _You must remember, Cyan. Elayne and Owain wish it so_.

It is too much. Cyan wipes away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. "I try. I try to recall the good things, not only the bad, though it is hard."

Without warning, Gau leaps out of his chair and over the table to give Cyan a tackling hug.

Predictably, the two of them end up on the carpet, along with several small plates of overpriced appetizers.

"You are good person," Gau says fiercely, arms crushing Cyan in a bear hug, "because you listen. Slow, but listen. You open your thinking, see new ways."

"I suppose," Cyan murmurs into Gau's shoulder.

"So I try too!" Flushing, the wildchild of the Veldt scrambles to his feet, straightening out his jacket along the way. "I will speak better," he says slowly, enunciating each syllable, "so I can meet father, show him I am a good person."

_He is not your father_, Cyan reminds himself not to say. _He is a man who threw you away, and I would not let him hurt you again, if only I could._

But first, he must make sure not to hurt Gau himself.

He stands.

"If it your wish, I will do my utmost to teach you," he says slowly. "And I hope that you, in turn, will continue to teach me."

"Uwa!" Gau affirms.

Cyan lets his voice soften. "You are a good person too, whatever your table manners or posture or speech. Whatever the world tells you, do not forget. Your have so much to teach the rest of us."

Moving out of his customary hunched-over posture, Gau stands up a little straighter and looks him in the eye. "I already know. I no forget. Cyan also no forget, okay?"

On some days Cyan's failures claw at him, a howling black void from which there is no escape. He cannot forget that other life, that version of himself who did not yet know the pain of losing wife and son and home. But more and more, his days are not so black. He has something to look forward to. He has gained new ways to learn, and live, and love.

"Aye," he says to Gau. "Aye."

_You will rebuild_, says Alexander, _a better place. One that will accept this child, and all the creatures he calls his equal._

_So we must_, says Cyan to the Esper at his side.

Gau's back is already curved into its usual hunch. He looks ready to hunt.

Cyan nods his approval.

-End-

* * *

Notes:

This fic was written for CorpseBrigadier, as part of the Exchange on the Big Bridge 2019 fic exchange.

**Two things that influenced this story:**

1) I've been playing Undertale recently, a game which asks us to question the usual way we go around killing monsters indiscriminately in video games.

2) The climate crisis, and the threat of mass damage to ecosystems and what that means to our fellow animals on this planet, and why some humans seem to think that this doesn't matter.

...I bet you didn't expect to hear about climate change on A03! But here we are. FFVI is a cautionary tale, and I think it's relevant now. It's a shame that Gau's story and personality were never explored much in the original game, since I think he should have a lot to say (he's such a talkative fellow when you first meet him!). But I guess that is what fanfiction is for :)

I hope you enjoyed this, CorpseBrigadier! I wish I had been able to get Sabin in there, but he was busy :D I tend not to write romance, but I think he and Cyan could totally be great dads together for Gau. It would be the buffest family ever.


End file.
